from the Lord through heaven; and that there is a God and that God is
one is the universal principle in heaven which comprises all things.
That from influx alone man knows and as it were sees that God is one, is
evident from the common confession of all nations, and from a repugnance
to think that there are many gods.

Man's interior thought, which is the thought of his spirit, is either
from hell or from heaven; it is from hell before evils have been
removed, but from heaven when they have been removed. When this thought
is from hell man sees no otherwise than that nature is god, and that the
inmost of nature is what is called the Divine. When such a man after
death becomes a spirit he calls anyone a god who is especially powerful;
and also himself strives for power that he may be called a god. All the
evil have such madness lurking inwardly in their spirit. But when a man
thinks from heaven, as he does when evils have been removed, he sees
from the light in heaven that there is a God and that He is one. Seeing
from light out of heaven is what is meant by influx. (A.E., n. 954.)

When a man shuns and turns away from evils because they are sins he not
only sees from the light of heaven that there is a God and the God is
one, but also that God is a Man. For he wishes to see his God, and he
is incapable of seeing Him otherwise than as a Man. Thus did the
ancients before Abraham and after him see God; thus do the nations in
lands outside the church see God from an interior perception, especially
those who are interiorly wise although not from knowledges; thus do all
little children and youths and simple well-disposed adults see God; and
thus do the inhabitants of all earths see God; for they declare that
what is invisible, since it does not come into the thought, does not
come into faith. The reason of this is that the man who shuns and turns
away from evils as sins thinks from heaven; and the whole heaven, and